


Cause and Effect

by ThirdGenerationRockette



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: 2.05, Angst, Eventual Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 23:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13669836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirdGenerationRockette/pseuds/ThirdGenerationRockette
Summary: A cab finally stops and she almost hurls herself into it, distracted and wondering if she can hold it together for the whole ride home or if she should just bury her face in her hands, get it over with, and weep for the next thirty blocks. It takes her as long as it takes Will to give the driver her address to realise he has climbed into the back seat with her, but once her brain catches up and she turns to him, she's furious.





	Cause and Effect

Mackenzie finds herself walking into Will's building and making her way up to his apartment before she's consciously aware it's where she even planned to go, and it's only in the split second before the doors open that it hits her with a sickening thud that he might not be alone, probably isn't alone. It's too late, of course, as her realisations so often are...if she had only thought about this downstairs, or before she jumped in a cab and gave the driver his address. Fucking hindsight. Useless.

He's standing there when she rounds the corner, leaning against the door frame, a pronounced frown on his face, and she stops, wishing she could just creep back down the hallway and forget she was ever here.

"Mac?" he asks, not returning the smile she tries to give him.

"I'm sorry," she says, "I don't know why I'm here, I just...I think I just needed to make sure you were okay. I mean, obviously you're not okay, but I guess I just..."

She stops talking when Nina appears in the doorway behind Will, reaching to place a hand possessively on his bicep as she stares at Mackenzie, her eyes hard, a slightly smug expression on her face.

"Mackenzie," she says. "It's pretty late, so can whatever it is wait until tomorrow?"

"Of course," Mac nods, taking a step back, raising her hands in mock surrender. "It's nothing, I can just, yeah...I'll see you in the morning, Will. Goodnight, Nina."

Seconds later, she's back in the elevator, frantically stabbing the button for the lobby, furious with herself for thinking he might need her, for not considering that Nina would be here, and mostly for the tears she feels approaching, presumably en route to accompany the huge lump in her throat.

_Mackenzie McHale, don't you dare fucking cry_.

She knows her admonition is futile, she knows that tears are her default when she feels like an idiot, and tears are the next best thing to punching herself in the face which, fuck, she would do right now if at all possible. Knowing about Nina is one thing, but seeing her there in Will's apartment looking for all the world like it's where she's meant to be...well, it hurts like she should have known it would. Mackenzie wonders if this is her signal, the final announcement that's it time for her to stop hoping, to accept that he's moved on, that he's never going to forgive her.

They're an undeniable force together at work, and maybe that will just have to be enough, maybe he's only ever meant to be part of her life in that capacity. She kicks herself for never having prepared for this, it was probably inevitable at some point. She isn't a fool, she knows him all too well, certainly well enough to know that betrayal is something he just isn't able to move beyond. By the time the doors open, she feels sick, like someone has suddenly ripped the floor out from under her, and it takes her a moment before the haze clears and she can step out and move towards the door.

Gathering enough composure to manage a polite goodnight to Will's doorman (because fuck, she was raised with manners), she stands beneath the awning outside and takes several gulping breaths, considering for a brief moment whether she should just start to walk home and try to clear her head, before acknowledging that her shoes really aren't made for that kind of distance, and instead moving towards the road to hail a cab. It seems fitting somehow that it's starting to rain; angry, heavy drops landing with purposeful splats, and she gives a hollow laugh as she contemplates the universe and its twisted sense of humour.

She's just spotted a free cab and is about to raise her arm to make it hers when she hears her name being called from the doorway behind her, and turns back, her stomach lurching as she steels herself for whatever it is Will is about to say.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay?" Mac decides to speak first, to make it clear that's she's heading home, that she didn't mean to bother him, to bother _them_. "I'm going, it's fine. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Don't go." He steps closer and reaches out for her, reflexively she thinks, since he retracts it almost immediately and shoves his hand into the pocket of his jeans instead. "I-"

"Fuck," Mac says as a cab passes, sloshing through the increasingly heavy rain and sending up a spray in her direction. "You should go back inside, Will. It's late, it's raining, and at some point Nina is going to come down here and drag you back upstairs. By the hair, probably."

"She's not going to come down, she's...well, she won't come after me." He stops and sighs, staring at her so intently that she has to look away.

Mackenzie's brain helpfully provides her with all kinds of delightful reasons why Nina won't be following her boyfriend down to the street (the boyfriend who just followed his ex-girlfriend down here...), reasons she tries to push away, because damn her over active imagination, just fucking damn it. Nina's probably in the bathroom removing the day's make-up, reaching for her things in the drawer she's claimed as her own, or maybe she's in the kitchen, moving between cupboards comfortably, making them both a snack or pouring a drink. Worst of all (and if Will wasn't standing in front of her she'd smack herself square between the eyes to banish this one), she imagines Nina curled up in bed, wearing nothing but a sheet as she purrs, "Get rid of her, Will, I'll be waiting."

"I didn't tell her," Will says, interrupting her thoughts, "Nina, I mean. I didn't tell her."

"You know she'll notice you're not in the apartment sooner or later, right?" Mackenzie wonders what the hell she's doing standing here, in the rain, having a cryptic conversation with someone who has made it quite clear he's moved on.

"About my dad, Mac," Will clarifies. "I didn't tell her my dad died."

"Oh." Mac is genuinely floored, having assumed Nina's appearance at Will's door had been her way of making it clear she was taking care of him, that it was her job now, and a not so subtle reminder to Mackenzie that her services are only required between eight and nine. "Maybe you should...or maybe you should ask yourself why you didn't."

"Yeah, well..." Will takes a step towards her, reaching out again, and this time committing to it, his hand squeezing her shoulder quickly before he pulls it back. "Thanks, Mac, for...for earlier, and for coming over tonight and-"

"You're welcome." She cuts him off because she doesn't understand what he wants from her, or if he wants anything from her at all. "Like I said, I just wanted to make sure you were okay, and..."

"If I'd told her he'd died tonight, it would have meant a conversation about my relationship with him, and why we weren't close, and, you know, I'm not..." He stops, stepping yet closer.

"She doesn't know about any of it?" Mac asks, knowing the answer already. She herself didn't know about Will's childhood for a long time, and she suspects she still doesn't know the half of it.

"No." He shakes his head. "And honestly? It's not something I have any interest in sharing with her."

"Well, it's certainly not my business what you do or don't choose to tell your girlfriend, but that's probably something you should ponder on, too." She pauses, because every time she thinks of Nina as Will's girlfriend it's like taking another knife to the gut. "Anyway-"

"Are you going home?" he asks and again she feels like she's been slapped.

"If you can stop talking long enough to leave me to try and get a fucking cab, then yes, don't worry, I'm going home," Mackenzie answers, tersely.

"I didn't mean it that way." He sounds exasperated but she doesn't care, she came with good intentions and she's leaving feeling like she's done something terrible.

Turning away from him and back to the road, she's perversely thankful for the rain because it seems like the perfect weather for this conversation, the ideal conditions for him to make it clear she's his EP and nothing more. He doesn't say anything else and she'll be damned if she's going to turn around to see if he's still standing there, or if he has already gone back upstairs where Nina is no doubt waiting with a towel to dry him off.

A cab finally stops and she almost hurls herself into it, distracted and wondering if she can hold it together for the whole ride home or if she should just bury her face in her hands, get it over with, and weep for the next thirty blocks. It takes her as long as it takes Will to give the driver her address to realise he has climbed into the back seat with her, but once her brain catches up and she turns to him, she's furious.

"What the fuck, Will?" she yells at him and sees the driver glance in the mirror. "You can't just-" 

"Mac." He tries to stop her, placing a hand on her arm which she shrugs off immediately.

"I'm serious," she says, her voice lowered but still weighted with anger. "You don't get to do this, it's not fair. I shouldn't have come over tonight, I know that, but I really didn't think it through beyond being worried about you, and I should have, because if I _had_ then I'd have realised the last person you'd probably want to see was me, so I'm sorry, and-"

"Mackenzie, would you stop for a goddamn second and let me say something?" He cuts her off, placing a hand on her arm again and refusing to move it when she tries, albeit halfheartedly, to shake him off.

"What are you doing, Will?" She sighs and turns to look out of the cab window, confused and angry, yet curious about just what the hell he's doing following her like this.

"I don't know," he says, and the sadness in his voice makes her turn back to him, cutting through her angry haze to remind her that his father died just hours ago and that was the reason she wanted to see him tonight.

"I'm sorry." She looks at him, and dares to cover his hand with hers, half expecting him to take his turn at pulling away, relieved when he doesn't. "I didn't come over to yell at you, I came over because I didn't want you to be alone, and I should have called first because then I'd have known you weren't alone and you were okay, and-"

"I'm glad you came over, you're the only one who..." He drifts off, pulling his gaze from hers and falling into silence.

"It shouldn't be me you want to talk to though." She speaks first, her voice barely a whisper, tears threatening once again. "You have... _her_ now, and that's great, you know, I want you to be happy, you should be happy."

She stops talking because she can't seem to choke any more words past the lump in her throat, she can't bear the feel of his hand under hers when she knows she has no right to be touching him, but when she tries to pull it back, he grabs it and clings to her, saying nothing as she swallows hard and bites her lip.

"Can I come up?" He turns to her as the cab stops outside her building, and there's an uncertainty in his voice she can't possibly say no to, so she nods and he climbs out of the cab and waits for her to follow.

Pouring two glasses of scotch and putting them down on the coffee table, she sits down beside him, careful to leave a modicum of space between them. Vulnerable Will is her greatest weakness, she just wants to wrap herself around him and tell him she's sorry, so sorry for everything; sorry his father brutalised him, sorry he's dead, sorry she ripped his heart out and left him devastated, sorry she can't close her eyes without seeing Nina in his arms...

"Maybe you should..." She starts tentatively, then takes a breath a almost spits out the rest of her question. "Should you call Nina, let her know where you are?"

"She knows where I am, Mac," he says, sighing. "I went after you but you were in the elevator already, and when I got back into the apartment she told me she wasn't going to make a fool of herself any longer. She said if I followed you, which she figured I would, she'd be gone by the time I got home. So, yeah..."

"So where does that leave me?" she asks, feeling an anxious knot building in her stomach. "She dumps you, so you come after me, is that it?"

"Completely the opposite." He shakes his head. "She dumped me _because_ I came after you. Cause and effect, and here we are."

"I don't know what to say to that." She tosses back her drink in one move and refuses to look at him. "I'm sorry?"

"Are you?" he asks, and she feels his eyes on her even though she won't look up from where her gaze is fixed firmly on her hands.

"No," she answers, after a beat, shaking her head slowly. "We really are a pair of fuck ups, aren't we?"

"Isn't everyone?" He aims for a flippant tone, failing when she finally glances up at him, her eyebrows raised.

"You know, I've heard that some people actually negotiate life quite successfully," she says. 

"Do we know any of those people?" he asks, surprised when she lets out a short laugh.

"I doubt it." Shaking her head, her expression turns sad once again. "You know, I thought I did have my life together once, and then I made the stupid mistake of questioning whether it was what I wanted, and I panicked, and fucked everything up. Now I do know what I want but it's too late, I know that, and I'm trying to just..."

She slams her glass down on the table, and stands up, arms automatically wrapping protectively around her middle, eyes fixed firmly on an invisible point on the wall ahead of her.

"Fuck, I feel like this is the point where I probably should go home, but I'm already home, so-" She stops when he stands up and takes hold of her shoulders.

"What if I said it wasn't too late?" he asks, and she blinks at him, confused. "What if we're only fucked up because we're no good without each other, Mackenzie? I mean, look at us, even after everything, you're the one I turn to when I need to talk, you're the only one I-"

"Ten minutes ago you were in bed with Nina Howard, so don't give me that shit about me being the only one." She sighs and steps back, holding up her hands to warn him off moving close to her again.

"Ten minutes ago Mac, I was sitting here with you, wondering why the fuck I'm not always sitting here with you." He raises his voice and she rolls her eyes.

"Maybe not literally ten minutes ago, but you know what I mean." She frowns at him. "You're standing there telling me I'm the only one you want to talk to, we're no good without each other, and I don't know what the fuck to do with that. I don't know if this is just your grief talking, or if it's another cruel trick, I just don't have a clue what's going on in your head, Billy, not anymore, and I can't be...I can't..."

She runs out of steam and stops, lowering herself slowly back into the sofa and leaning back, her eyes closed as she tries to make sense of the turn this evening seems to have taken. He sits down next to her, closer than before, his thigh touching hers, and she opens her eyes to see him looking at her.

"You can't what?" he asks, after a few long seconds that convince her he isn't going to say a thing.

"I don't know how to do this." Her eyes are bright, but her voice is steady. "We were good for a while, weren't we? It felt like we were friends again, like you didn't hate me with quite as much passion as before, and then Nina came into the picture, and you shut me out completely. You stopped calling, so I stopped calling, you stopped coming to the bar, and somewhere along the way you started to value her advice more than mine, and that really fucking hurt, Will, almost more than anything else. And now here we are, doing...well, what the fuck _are_ we doing?"

"I miss you." There's a note of fear in his voice but he doesn't take his eyes from hers.

"So now we're even." She looks away, sighing softly. "I'm sorry your father died, and I'm sorry you didn't get to talk to him, to get some kind of closure, because I think it may have helped, and I'm sorry for...well, if you need me, I'm here, I'll probably always be here, whatever the fuck that says about me."

"Mac." Reaching over, he picks up her hand from where it's absently tapping against her knee.

"Billy." She looks back at him. "There's something in me that makes it impossible to walk away from you, even though sometimes you make it really fucking hard to stay. You say you miss me, but you won't forgive me, you say it's _our_ show but you let Nina talk you into caring more about the numbers than the quality of our work. Surely you can see why I might be confused?"

"I should have told you what the rest of the voicemail said." He takes a breath, tightening his grip on her hand when she tries to pull it away. "I didn't-"

"I know what it said." She shrugs. "Nina told me."

"I'm not just saying this because I'm high...I've never stopped loving you. You were spectacular tonight." He stops, watching as her eyebrows raise.

"That's not..." She swallows. "That's not what Nina said."

"No, I'm sure it wasn't," he says, wondering exactly what Nina told her it said. "So..." 

"You love me," she says, and it's a statement rather than a question.

"I do," he confirms, overwhelmed by relief at finally saying it out loud to her. "Always have, never stopped."

"Always." She repeats, staring at him, a slight frown creasing her brow. 

"Always." He nods. "Since almost the first moment I met you." 

"And…you never stopped," she says, the frown easing as she bites her lip.

"Are you just going to keep repeating everything I say?” he asks, smiling at her.

“I don’t, I mean I…" She pauses, and sighs as the frown settles back in place. "What do you want, Will?"

"I want to kiss you," he says honestly, watching as her eyes go wide. 

"Fuck," she murmurs, a slow smile moving to replace the frown.

"One step at a time, Mackenzie." He teases, smiling when she nudges his shoulder in mock outrage, and moves her hand to tangle their fingers together.

"Your father died three hours ago," she says quietly. "If this is something you need from me just for tonight, then I don’t know if-"

"I wouldn’t do that to you, Mac." He cuts in, needing to make himself clear. "This isn’t me needing a warm body for the night, this is-"

"A boy standing in front of a girl, asking her to love you," she says, an almost hysterical giggle punctuating her statement.

"Did you just-" His eyebrows raise in amusement.

"I'm sorry, I realise quoting 90s romantic comedy probably isn't entirely the right thing at this very moment, but I'm freaking out a bit here." She pauses. "You know, in case you hadn't noticed."

"If I hadn't noticed, your Julia Roberts moment right there would have set me straight." He smiles at her, shaking his head. "What I was going to say is I guess I’m finally pulling my head from wherever it’s been and asking if it’s too late."

"Too late?" she asks, her fingers tightening in his.

"Are we back to this again?" He quirks an eyebrow at her repetition.

"Sometimes I wonder how you can be so smart, yet so...not." She edges slightly closer and her free hand settles on his knee.

"I’m going to assume that’s not just a random observation, and that you’re actually going somewhere with it-"

He stops because he has no choice, because her lips are suddenly pressed against his, in a curious combination of softness and urgency (he suspects the urgency comes from a need on her part to just stop them from saying anything else). He barely has time to relax into the kiss, or to even fully comprehend that it’s actually happening, when she pulls back slightly, her hands framing his face, and her eyes shining as she looks into his.

"Not too late," she murmurs. "Definitely not too late."

"Alright, good." It’s not his most eloquent response but it's the best he can manage when her hands are on his skin, her lips a mere fraction from his. It will do for now, he figures he can do better later when his brain isn’t about to short circuit from the overwhelming sensation of her just being here with him, like this.

She kisses him again and this time he’s fully present, taking in every detail he’d tried to forget, all of the little things he’d found himself yearning for when he was with anyone else, but had forced his brain to push aside. The way her thumbs rub tiny circles on the side of his face as the tips of her fingers slide into his hair, the way she sighs into the kiss when his hands roam across her back to pull her closer; but more than anything it's the way she looks at him when she pulls away that unravels him, the look that could fell a man far stronger than he is, the look he is so damn thankful is reserved for him.

She pulls back eventually, resting her forehead against his, and he can feel her trembling slightly as she clings to him.

"Mac?" he asks, running his hands gently down her arms, trying to soothe her, or at least to figure out if he's pushing her too far, too fast.

"I’m sorry, I’m okay, I’m just-" She pauses and climbs slowly, determinedly, into his lap, pushing up the pencil skirt trying to impede her movements. "I-"

"Mackenzie, you’re it for me, _this_ is it, you own me, always have." He stops her, his hands taking hold of hers. "Shit, what I’m trying to say is we can wait, if you don’t want to-"

"No, I _do_ want to, God Will, I really do. I’m fine, I think…well, I think I’m nervous." She laughs softly. "How fucking stupid is that?"

"Not stupid," he says, kissing the tip of her nose and smiling as she grins. "Never stupid." 

"It just feels like we went from zero to sixty in about-"

"Seven years?" He raises an eyebrow and she laughs again.

"I suppose, if you’re looking at the bigger picture." She shrugs.

"Honey, we’re journalists, we should always be looking at the bigger picture," he says, his hands still holding onto hers.

"I’ll give you that one." She smiles. "But still, it hasn’t been seven years since we did _this_." 

"No, I guess…five." He nods. "Even if feels like fifty."

"Oh please." She laughs, pulling one of her hands free just so she can swat his shoulder, semi-playfully. "You haven’t exactly been going without, Billy."

"No, I..." He pauses. "No, but-"

"I’m not saying…obviously you have, you _had_ , every right to be with whomever you want to, I really wasn’t in a position to be making those kinds of demands." She stops and smiles at him as she runs her thumbs across his bottom lip.

"You’re in exactly that position now." He runs a hand up her thigh and smiles back. "And there’s only one person I want to be with…today, tomorrow, for the rest of my life."

"Might that person be me?" She bats her lashes, coyly, and then giggles at her own messy attempt at shameless flirting.

"Well, given that you’re in my lap right now, and I can’t seem to stop touching you, I’d say yeah, there’s a good chance it is," he says grinning at her as she leans forward to kiss him.

"I kind of thought when this happened, _if_ this happened, it would be at your place. I don’t know why," she says, biting her lip. "I suppose it would have been slightly inappropriate tonight while Nina was packing up her stuff though."

"Mackenzie." He kisses her again, moving from her lips to her neck, driven instinctively to leave his mark on her, his hand sliding into her hair as she tilts her head.

"Too soon?" she murmurs, as his teeth scrape lightly across her skin. 

"Hon?" He lifts his head to look at her.

"Yeah." She breathes, her eyes locked onto his.

"We do have a lot of talking to do, I know that, and if you need to thrash out whatever the fuck I was doing with Nina then fine, I probably owe you that, but could we maybe not do it now?" He moves his thumb to the side of her neck where his teeth have made a faint mark, rubbing her skin tenderly.

"Yeah." She sighs as his thumb moves lower, swiping her collarbone until she shudders. "Yeah, it can wait, or yeah-"

"It can wait." She looks down as he fumbles with the buttons on her blouse. "It can definitely wait, but…"

"But?" he asks, his fingers still tackling her buttons, his eyes noting the rise and fall of her chest as she bites her lip again.

"I don’t want to...I don't want this to be a quick fuck on the sofa, with both of us still half dressed," she says, squirming in his lap as if to make her point.

"Oh honey, wherever we do this, I’m going to do my best to make sure it’s not quick." He considers trying to scoop her up as he stands but she’s more aware than him of his limitations so she starts to climb out of his lap.

"I’m going to hold you to that," she says, wiggling in an attempt to straighten her skirt, before giving in and reaching for his hand instead.

He lets her lead him towards the bedroom, he's only ever been to her apartment once (he still thinks of her old place as home for her, but this place suits her better) and right now, he couldn't point in the direction of the bedroom if his life depended on it. All he can see is her, her skirt wrinkled, her shoes abandoned somewhere back in the living room, her hair mussed, her hand holding tight to his. They reach the doorway and she stops, turning to him suddenly, her eyes bright as she throws her arms suddenly around him.

"Will," she says as she tucks her face into the crook of his neck, and he feels her breath hitch slightly. "I love you too."

"Thank God," he whispers against her, sliding his arms around her and leaning in to kiss her again. "Thank God."


End file.
